Seattle's Big Bertha tunnel drill blocked by mystery object

and a mystery lies underneath Seattle this morning something is blocking this massive piece of equipment from carving out a new future for commuters as John Blackstone reports that means slamming the brakes on the Emerald city's version of the Big Dig deep in each Seattle something has brought the world's biggest tunnel-boring machine to an abrupt halt it's just a thousand feet into a tunnel that's planned to be almost 10,000 feet long we're being really cautious want to make sure that we don't damage this 80 million dollar machine the 80 million dollar machine nicknamed Big Bertha stands five stories tall it arrived in Seattle earlier this year with much fanfare and high hopes absolutely it's the way to go every city should have a big tunnel underneath it Gregory Hauser is deputy project manager for the tunnel which is planned to stretch 1.7 miles under downtown Seattle carrying a double deck highway it will replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct er raised concrete freeway built across the Adams waterfront in the 1950s this Alaskan Way Viaduct which is old and ugly and dirty and and it's going to fall down if the the earth moves and it shakes anymore it's going to fall Big Bertha doesn't just drill it installs concrete wall panels as it goes leaving a finished tunnel behind oh this is this is a work of art this is absolutely a work of art and and it's going to be beautiful when it's finished the three billion dollar tunnel is scheduled to carry traffic by the end of 2015 but engineers always knew they could run into obstacles we've got a general idea of how many boulders there might be and what size they might be but there's no guarantee that there couldn't be a 20-footer sitting in the way the project director says it could take two weeks to figure out what is in the way and how to remove it wells are being drilled to lower the pressure of groundwater in front of the machine and divers may be sent in to have a look Big Bertha is named after Bertha Knight Landis elected as Seattle's first female mayor in the 1920s she broke through a major barrier now it's up to Big Bertha the drill to do the same for CBS this morning John Blackstone San Francisco

Channel: CBS This Morning

Views: 637,850

Rating: 4.5483871 out of 5

Keywords: seattle, big bertha, drill, dig, tunnel, commuter, big dig, mystery, problem, blackstone, video, videos, cbsnews.com video, cbs news video

Id: tuZpqzd1lpY

Length: 2min 21sec (141 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 17 2013